Top and bottom Adds

clock

adds

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Indian Cricket teams Biodata?

The Indian cricket team is an international cricket team representing India. It is governed by the Board of Control for Cricket in India, the cricket governing body in India. The Indian Cricket Team is currently the highest paid sports team in the world (in terms of sponsorship).[1]Debuting as Test cricket team at Lord's, England on 25 June 1932, the Indian cricket team became the sixth Test playing team. For nearly fifty years, India was weaker than most of the other Test cricket teams, such as Australia and England, winning only 35 of the 196 matches it played during this period.[2] The team gained strength near the end of the 50-year period with the emergence of players such as Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev and the Indian spin quartet. The Indian team has continued to be highly ranked since then in both Test cricket and One-day Internationals. The team won the Cricket World Cup in 1983 and was runners-up in 2003. The current team contains many of the world's leading players, including Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly and Anil Kumble, who hold numerous cricketing world records.[1][3] As of November 2006, the team is ranked fourth in the ICC Test Championship[4] and in sixth place in the ICC ODI Championship[5] In December 2006, it played and won its first ever Twenty20 international in South Africa, becoming the most recent Test team to play 20-20 cricket.HistoryMain article: History of the Indian cricket teamKumar Shri Ranjitsinhji was an Indian who played for the English cricket teamThe British brought cricket to India in the early 1700s, with the first cricket match being played in 1721.[6] In 1848, the Parsi community in Mumbai formed the Oriental Cricket Club, the first cricket club to be established by Indians. After slow beginnings, the Parsis were eventually invited by the Europeans to play a match in 1877.[7] By 1912, the Parsis, Hindus, and Muslims of Bombay played a quadrangular tournament with the Europeans every year.[7] In the early 1900s, some Indians went on to play for the English cricket team. Some of these, such as Ranjitsinhji and KS Duleepsinhji were greatly appreciated by the British and their names went on to be used for the Ranji Trophy and Duleep Trophy-two of the major domestic tournaments in India. In 1911, an Indian team went on their first official tour of England, but only played English county teams and not the English cricket team.[8] India was invited into the Imperial Cricket Council in 1926 and made its debut as a Test-cricket-playing-nation in England in 1932 led by CK Nayudu.[9] The match was given Test status despite being only 3 days in length. The team was not strong in its batting at this point and went on to lose by 158 runs.[10] Indian team continued to improve throughout the 1930s and '40s but did not achieve an international victory during this period. The team's first series as an independent country was in 1948 against Sir Donald Bradman's Invincibles (a name given to the Australian cricket team of that time). Australia won the five-match series, 4-0.[11]India recorded their first Test victory against England at Madras in 1952[12] and later in the year won their first Test series (against Pakistan). They continued their improvement throughout the early 1950s with a series win against New Zealand in 1956, however they did not win again in the remainder of the 1950s and lost badly to strong Australian and English sides. The next decade developed India's reputation as a team that is considered very strong at home. Although they only won two series (both against New Zealand), they managed to draw home series against Pakistan, England and Australia.Kapil Dev receiving the Cricket World Cup in 1983The key to India's bowling in the 1970s were the Indian spin quartet. This period also saw the emergence of two of India's best ever batsmen, Sunil Gavaskar and Gundappa Viswanath. Indian pitches have had tendency to support spin and this was exploited by the spin quartet to create collapses in opposing batting lineups. These players were responsible for the back-to-back series wins in 1971 in the West Indies and in England, under the captaincy of Ajit Wadekar.The advent of One-Day International cricket in 1971 created a new dimension in the cricket world. However, India was not considerably strong in ODIs at this point and batsmen like captain Gavaskar were known for their defence-based approaches to batting. India began as a weak team in ODIs and did not manage to qualify for the second round in the first two editions of the Cricket World Cup.During the 1980s, India developed a more competent batting line-up. Batsmen like Mohammed Azharuddin, Dilip Vengsarkar and all-rounder Ravi Shastri were prominent during this time. India won the Cricket World Cup in 1983, defeating the favourites West Indies in the final, owing to a strong bowling performance. In spite of this the team performed poorly in the Test arena, including 28 consecutive Test matches without a victory. In 1984, India won the Asia Cup and in 1985, won the World Championship of Cricket in Australia. However, India, remained a very weak team outside the Indian subcontinent. India's Test series victory in 1986 against England remained the last Test series win by India outside subcontinent for the next 19 years. The 1987 Cricket World Cup was held in India. The 1980s saw Gavaskar and Kapil Dev (India's best all rounder to this date) at the pinnacle of their careers. Gavaskar made a Test record 34 centuries as he became the first man to reach the 10,000 run mark and Kapil Dev who later became the highest wicket taker in Test cricket with 434 wickets. The period was also marked by an unstable leadership, with Gavaskar and Kapil exchanging the captaincy several times.A graph showing India's Test match results against all Test match teams from 1932 to September 2006The addition of Sachin Tendulkar (aged 16 at the time) and Anil Kumble to the national side in 1989 and 1990 further improved the team. The following year, Javagal Srinath, India's fastest bowler since Amar and Nissar Singh made his debut. Despite this, during the 1990s, India did not win any of its 33 Tests outside the subcontinent while it won 17 out of its 30 Tests at home. After being eliminated by neighbours Sri Lanka on home soil at the 1996 Cricket World Cup, the team underwent a year of change as Rahul Dravid, Saurav Ganguly, later to be become captains of the team, made their debut in the same Test at Lord's. Azharuddin was replaced by Tendulkar as captain in late 1996, but after a personal and team form slump, Tendulkar relinquished the captaincy and Azharuddin was reinstalled at the beginning of 1998. With the captaincy burden removed, Tendulkar was the world's leading run-scorer in both Tests and ODIs, as India enjoyed a home Test series win over Australia, the best ranked team in the world. After failing to reach the semifinals at the 1999 Cricket World Cup, Tendulkar was again made captain, and had another poor run, losing 3-0 on a tour of Australia and then 2-0 at home to South Africa. Tendulkar resigned, vowing never to captain the team again, with Sourav Ganguly appointed the new captain. The team was further damaged in 2000 when former captain Azharuddin and fellow batsman Ajay Jadeja were implicated in a match-fixing scandal and given life bans.India's performance in the remaining World Cups has been considerably consistent. In the 1987 Cricket World Cup, the team advanced to the semi-finals as favourites, they did the same in 1996; both times they suffered defeats in the semi-finals. India was weaker in the 1999 Cricket World Cup, and did not make it past the Super Six round. In the 2003 Cup, India lost only two games (both against reigning champions Australia) and advancing to the finals, where they were defeated by Australia.The Indian cricket team in action in the Wankhede StadiumSince the year 2000, the Indian team underwent major improvements with the appointment of John Wright as India's first ever foreign coach. India maintained a very good record against Australia and, and had not been beaten by them in a test series in India since 1969. This was the reason for Australian captain Steve Waugh labelling India as the "Final Frontier". [13] India also won a historic test and ODI series against arch-rivals Pakistan.Since 2004, India has suffered from lack of form and fitness from its older players. During 2005, India lost series' to Australia and Pakistan. Greg Chappell took over from John Wright as the new coach of the Indian cricket team following the series. However, India continued to be unconvincing. The tension resulted in a fallout between Chappell and Ganguly and Rahul Dravid was installed as the captain, triggering a revival in the team's fortunes and discovery of new young talent such as that of M.S. Dhoni and Irfan Pathan. The team also beat the Sri Lankans in the Test series 2-0 to displace England from its position in second place in the ICC Test rankings, but India slipped back by losing the high-profile[14] India achieved the world-record of winning 17 successive matches chasing the total. However, after a series loss against a weak West Indies, India once again was questioned abou it's capability to win the 2007 Cricket World Cup in the Carribean.[15] India since continued bad form, losing the DLF Cup, ICC Champions Trophy and being whitewashed in ODIs by South AfricaIndia's traditional strengths have always been its line-up of spin bowlers and batsmen. [16]Currently, it has a very strong batting lineup with Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag all being selected to play for the ICC World XI in the 2005 "SuperTest" against Australia. In previous times, India was unique in that it was the only country to regularly field three spinners in one team, whereas one is the norm, and of the fifteen players to have taken more than 100 wickets, only four were pace bowlers from the last 20 years [17].However in recent years, Indian pace bowling has improved, with the emerging talents of Irfan Pathan, Munaf Patel and Sreesanth and many more playing in the national team.See also: India at the Cricket World Cup, List of Indian Test cricketers, and List of Indian ODI cricketers